Filed under: service design | Tags: design thinking, fast company, systems thinking
Fast Company’s Fred Collopy writes about Lessons learned – Why the Failure of Systems Thinking Should Inform the Future of Design Thinking.
Last month I read about Systems Thinking and spent an afternoon talking and asking questions about it.
Design and “design thinking” is gaining recognition as an important integrative concept in management practice and education. But it will fail to have a lasting impact, unless we learn from the mistakes of earlier, related ideas. For instance, “system thinking”, which shares many of the conceptual foundations of “design thinking”, promised to be a powerful guide to management practice, but it has never achieved the success its proponents hoped for. If systems thinking had been successful in gaining a foothold in management education over the last half of the 20th century, there would be no manage by designing movement, or calls for integrative or design thinking.
Callopy argues that Systems Thinking never really captured the imagination of business leaders. And we must learn from its mistakes. He proposes we learn and subscribe to a theory or system of thought that is based on ideas from design and managers and policy makers will become designers of a sort particularly suited to their circumstances.
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You didn’t try too hard with the research then?
Comment by John Seddon June 11, 2009 @ 8:44 amSystems Thinking is alive, well, and capturing the imagination of many. But then you weren’t really looking were you? You just wanted to promote ‘design thinking’.
Hi John, How are you? Thank you for your comment. This post is not intended to promote either design thinking or systems thinking – it is merely relaying the thoughts and the opinions of the author from Fast Company. I am infact always trying hard with research, as that is what I do, I read all articles I discover about both forms of thinking. I am keen to learn all I can about both. Hence, why I have been promoting your book to all ‘design thinkers’ that I know.
Comment by redjotter June 11, 2009 @ 10:04 amDamn. Category mistake. I knew that would happen.
It’s just the “Turkey Turkey” problem. Did I mean the Country or the Bird?
The ’systems thinking’ in the Fast Company article is a different ’systems thinking’ than John’s ’systems thinking’.
One of them comes out of the cybernetics tradition and ‘general systems theory’. The other stems from Deming, Quality, and the Toyota Production System approach. (I hope that description isn’t too much of a distortion John.)
At a glance it’s easy to conflate the two and get confused, because their impulse is similar i.e getting to grips with how things work. BUT, it strikes me though that the cybernetics ’systems thinking’ mired itself in overly fancy theory — which is great if you are writing a Phd. Interesting, but not so useful if you are trying to get, say, practical access to healthcare…
I like John’s approach. It seems to me to be both holistic in approach and practical in action.
Comment by Nick Durrant June 11, 2009 @ 11:47 amAre they distinct though? Both are approaches for understanding the components and processes of complex systems or service propositions. Seddon’s to me seem to be more pragmatic in the sense that they use this deconstruction to help influence future refinements (better quality) from ‘the outside-in’ in a more agile and adaptive manner whilst the ‘cybernetic’ approach sometimes seems to be more concerned with simply mapping the system in a traditionally academic manner.
What I took from the Fast Company article and the numerous repeated references across the blogosphere in recent days is the important distinction between a ’systems approach’ which is still a top down or extrinsic ‘management’ viewpoint and what I perceive as a ‘design thinking’ approach which is intended to be an intrinsic and empowering organisational process.
Design thinking (and many of the service design approaches it appears to have influenced) start from the ‘bottom up’ by establishing user requirements and using these to direct design or redesign of the system or service and empower its users. The Fast Company article appeared to warn against losing sight of this human-centric view and as a result have ‘design thinking’ relegated to the realm of pure management jargon.
Thank you for starting this discussion Lauren, it will doubtless help clarify in all our minds the distinction between these various philosophies. Hopefully it will also help us decide whether we want to command and control our users or inspire and empower them as we design and improve their products, systems and services.
Comment by Fergus Bisset June 11, 2009 @ 12:47 pmGood catch!
Comment by Nick Durrant June 11, 2009 @ 1:11 pmAs someone who has taught systems concepts and systems thinking for three decades, I remain chastened. Whether the audience is undergraduates, MBAs or senior executives, few are familiar with feedback in a meaningful way (say the difference between positive and negative), fewer can readily characterize their own organization as a system. This is not what my teachers had hoped for. They felt that what they were learning was so urgent that every manager should learn it and used it.
It is not that managers have learned nothing. Such ideas and techniques as NPV and IRR, Modern Financial Theory and Black Sholes option pricing, regression and data mining are ubiquitous). Even more esoteric concepts such as Prospect Theory, Emotional Intelligence, and Six Sigma have found their way into the arsenal of a vast army of managers.
As I said in the original essay, so many of the concepts that proponents of design in management see as essential are in the literature on systems. And people such as you are already sharing that is ways that will improve the world. I take no issue with that. It is the folks on the other side of the wall that I was warning. We all must get better at making our ideas palatable to wider communities. The problems facing us require that.
Comment by Fred Collopy June 11, 2009 @ 12:11 pmFred, does http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory do the field (some) justice, in your opinion? I was just thinking about reasonable starting points for people orientating themeselves to the background history?
Comment by Nick Durrant June 11, 2009 @ 1:09 pmFor another incredibly articulate contribution to and rationalisation of this discussion see:
http://www.colourquotesanalysis.com/entries/codifying_design_thinking_threatens_its_central_value/
Comment by Fergus Bisset June 13, 2009 @ 2:42 pm[...] been reiterated by many prominent service design thinkers and doers such as Arne van Oosterom and Lauren Currie amongst others – demonstrating the pertinence of this issue amongst service designers at [...]
Pingback by Just do it; why in design actions speak louder than thoughts. | Ferg's Blog June 13, 2009 @ 4:55 pmSystems thinking is highly successful….it’s so successful we don’t even notice it anymore.
The computer you’re using is a system and trust me…there’s a lot of systems thinkers working on the web making it happen.
Politics, government, business…these are all examples of systems…heck even design is a system.
http://multispective.wordpress.com/2008/10/26/a-brief-history-of-ancient-systems-thinking/
Comment by Daniel Montano July 24, 2009 @ 1:32 amI agree with the general spirit of your remark, Daniel. Systems thinking often fades into the background. In fairness though, most computer programs and systems are designed using reductionist methods (breaking a problem down into smaller and smaller modules). It remains fairly rare (and exciting) when a lot of real energy goes into anticipating side effects, seeking out benefits of the whole, searching for the sources of vitality, and so forth.
As for the computer *being* a system, of course that is so. But so it a pad of paper and pencil. Systems are everywhere; serious thinking about their essential character is not.
Comment by Fred Collopy July 24, 2009 @ 12:40 pm[...] Contact Follow me on Flickr Join me on Facebook Follow me on Twitter Join me on Linkedin We’ve got a thinkin’ problem August 18, 2009, 10:42 am Filed under: design thinking | Tags: design thinking, rip and mix The design initiative ‘Unfinished business’ is the unfinished words and deeds of the core team of the unfinished business project. They have highlighted an interesting way of perceiving design thinking. [...]
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